No cojones? Wenger responds to Troy Deeney’s comments from last season

Arsene Wenger wants his Arsenal side to answer Troy Deeney by beating the Hornets on Sunday.

Watford came from a goal down to claim what we can no longer call a ‘rare’ Watford win over Arsenal.

That result at the start of January last season was seen by many as the tipping point for this Arsenal team and they’ve only won 50% of their league games since that day, losing 15 games of the 44 played.

“I’ve heard Wenger’s already blaming (the decision) as the reason why they lost,” Deeney said after the game. “I’m not going to be the one to tell Mr Wenger about himself, but there’s a reason why they lost and it wasn’t because of one penalty.

“I’ll have to watch what I say. It’s (having) a bit of cojones, a bit of nuts.”

“Whenever I play Arsenal, I’ll go up and think, ‘Let me whack the first one and see who wants it’.

“I came on today (Saturday) and jumped with (Per) Mertesacker. I didn’t even have to jump, actually – I nodded it down. The crowd gets up – ‘Yeah, we’ve got somebody who can win it’ – and they all just backed off.

“For me as a player I just think, ‘Happy days’. That’s my strength. I know I’m not technically gifted like they are, not as quick, but if you want to fight with me, I’m gonna beat you all day.”

If Tony Pulis isn’t his da, I don’t know who is.

Ahead of the game this weekend Wenger was, of course, asked about Deeney’s comments.

“We come back to criticism – there’s only one way to respond to it,” Wenger said. “But first I’d like to say that on the day, they got a cheap penalty and so we were not just a bit unlucky. “Secondly, there’s always only one way to respond to these kinds of statements and that’s with the quality of our performance. Our motivation has to come from within the group and show how much we want it.”

No matter what you think of Arsene Wenger at the minute, the manner in which he speaks compared to Deeney is just one of the many, many, many reasons Wenger’s name will be in the history books while most people won’t even remember Troy Deeney ever existed.